Last year, Sarovar Benkikere earned his engineering degree with distinction from a well-known college in the city. But for the last one-and-a-half years, the youth, from a poor family living in a village in Chennagiri taluk, has been unable to find any job. Mutturaj, who has an MA in Political Science, too, has been searching for a job since a year. Similarly, Swati with a PhD in immunology from Germany struggled to land a job in Bengaluru. Her problem: she was over-qualified.
They have banded together under the banner of Karnataka for Employment (KFE) to launch a campaign called “Vote for Employment” and a mobile application called “My Job”.
Apart from providing information on job openings in various sectors, the will also update users on self-employment schemes, scholarships, and provide guidance to entrepreneurs. The app, available on Android, has seen close to 2,000 downloads in two days, said Mr. Benikikere. The app has been designed by two students from PES College of Engineering
Stating that there is a problem with the government’s employment policy itself, Mr. Benikikere said the KFE submitted an alternative employment policy to both the Central and State governments earlier this year.
“The government, both the State and the Centre, talk about generating lakhs and lakhs of jobs each year. We want to ask the government where are the jobs? And if jobs have been created, why are so many educated youths still unemployed? The campaign is a platform to bring together the youth of the State to tell the government that if they can’t give us jobs, they should not expect votes,” said Mr. Benikikere, the convenor of the campaign.
Youth conference
The group plans to hold a youth conference titled “Youth Assembly on Employment” in Bengaluru on February 4.
“With the help of experts, we will prepare a youth manifesto suggesting the areas where over 50 lakh jobs can be created in the next five years,” said Mr. Muthuraj.